Beverley Mitchell may be known for her acting, but cookies have always been her not-so-secret obsession. She's always been into baking — something she's passed on to her kids, who often join her in the kitchen — and it's even played a key role in realizing she'd found the guy she wanted to spend the rest of her life with (more on that soon).

All the while, though, she's struggled with stomach issues, never really knowing what was up — until a year ago, when she took a food intolerance test and learned almost everything she baked the traditional way was off-limits: milk, eggs, wheat, and soy were hard for her body to process, making her feel sick.

"[The doctor] had never seen someone whose body rejects food so much, and she told me, 'You're in a pretty dangerous spot. You need to figure this out,'" Mitchell explains. "I went into a dark place for a month."

Nestle Toll House

As a mom of two, she didn't want to force her whole family to adopt her lifestyle, so she started keeping a portion of the pantry stocked with things she could eat, like corn-free tortilla chips. Things got tricky, though, when her husband started raiding her stash.

"I'd get so mad, because I'd go to get something and he's eaten it. That's when the only child in me starts going, 'mine, mine, mine,'" she laughs. "So now, it's affected my whole kitchen. Everything in my house is fresh and has good, clean ingredients."

"[The doctor] had never seen someone whose body rejects food so much."

Even down to her cookies. Mitchell hasn't given up baking with her kids, but she's recently traded classic semisweet chips for Nestlé Toll House's new Simply Delicious morsels.

"They're free of eight major allergens, like peanuts and milk, which is a huge win for me," says the actress, who got so into the new line that she partnered with the brand for Food Allergy Awareness Week. "My kids go to a nut-free school, and it's so terrifying when you're baking treats that could be harmful to another child. This just takes the guesswork out of it."

After struggling with stomach problems and a weakened immune system for so long, finally feeling the relief of eating things that don't make her sick has changed her perspective on baking in general. Her home's still a place where the kids gather to bake regularly — "there are rings on all my marble from baking and meals I've cooked" — only now, she's more likely to bake allergen-free snacks, like her oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies.

And she's added a new addition to her white and green, country-style kitchen: a teal cookie jar on the counter. Teal's been a color associated with allergy awareness, with people putting out a teal pumpkin around Halloween to signal that they serve allergen-free candy kids can enjoy. Mitchell's taking things one step further with the jar.

"My son will literally eat anything, anywhere, off of anyone's plate," Mitchell says. "The teal cookie jar just lets the kids, and their friends, know that it's safe to eat what's in the jar."

Nestle Toll House

Cookies are particularly beloved in Mitchell's household. After all, they're how she got to know her husband, accountant Michael Cameron. When they first met 18 years ago, he decided to impress her by making her favorite ones (chocolate chip, obvi), baking batch after batch until he got them just right.

"I didn't believe he made them at first, so I tested him," Mitchell says, asking Cameron what's in them. "He said they had baking soda and baking powder, and I was like, 'whoa, he knows his stuff.' They were so good that I brought them to the [7th Heaven] set and everyone called him Cookie Boy."

Eighteen years later, their bond has only grown stronger (they were married 10 years ago) — and Cameron hasn't totally lost his Cookie Boy moniker. "Eventually, people gave up the nickname, except Barry [Watson], who still calls him that sometimes," Mitchell says. "When it first happened, Michael was like, 'Really? You couldn't have told them anything else about me?' It was just so sweet though!"

Candace Braun DavisonDeputy EditorCandace Braun Davison writes, edits, and produces lifestyle content that ranges from celebrity features to roll-up-your-sleeves DIYs, all while relentlessly pursuing the noblest of causes: the quest for the world's best chocolate chip cookie.

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